Angelic Conflict part 157: Human history (Sabbath) – Heb 4:9; Eze 20:18-39; 16:15-22; 2Th 2:11-12; Act 7:41-43; 2Ch 28:1-4.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 157: Human history (Sabbath) - HEB 4:9; EZE 20:18-39; 16:15-22; 2TH 2:11-12; ACT 7:41-43; 2CH 28:1-4.  

 

 

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EZE 20:18 "And I said to their children in the wilderness, 'Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, or keep their ordinances, or defile yourselves with their idols.

 

EZE 20:19 'I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances, and observe them.

 

EZE 20:20 'And sanctify My sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.'

 

EZE 20:21 "But the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to observe My ordinances, by which, if a man observes them, he will live; they profaned My sabbaths. So I resolved to pour out My wrath on them, to accomplish My anger against them in the wilderness.

 

EZE 20:22 "But I withdrew My hand and acted for the sake of My name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

 

So the children were no better. They also worked on the Sabbath, worshipped idols, rebelled against Moses and Aaron (Korah rebellion), etc.

 

Yet God remained faithful.

 

The Exodus also teaches us the faithfulness of God. God will do what He promises, whether we enter His rest or reject it.

 

We can have great joy, rest, peace, etc. while God accomplishes all His good pleasure or we can have anxiety, misery, fear, worry, etc. in the exact same circumstances.

 

God threatened them with dispersion, which wouldn’t happen to the Exodus, but would to later generations, like the ones that Ezekiel is teaching.

 

EZE 20:23 "Also I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them among the lands,

 

This part of Ezekiel’s message is of extreme importance to the leaders who came to him to inquire about God. Why are you in Babylon? Well, if you would just listen to doctrine then you would have your answer.

 

These Israelites are in Babylon because they had not observed and followed God's word. The question now is not about captivity but about repentance towards God's word.

 

EZE 20:24 because they had not observed My ordinances, but had rejected My statutes, and had profaned My sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers.

 

You have been scattered and dispersed among the nations because you have not observed God’s ordinances, rejected His statutes, profaned His Sabbaths and worshipped the idols of your fathers.

 

Ok, so now what. Change your thinking and rest again, observe and celebrate the Sabbath and the ordinances and obey the statutes and God will prosper you even in this place.

 

If you are alive, then today, left behind, available to you, is the self-existing, eternal, and unchanging Sabbath rest of God.

 

EZE 20:25 "And I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live;

 

“statutes that were not good” - curses in the Mosaic Law for those who refused to obey the good statutes.

 

This could also refer to the statutes of the foreign nations that they would be dispersed to in the future. Either way, it is a curse upon those who refuse to believe God’s word.

 

EZE 20:26 and I pronounced them unclean because of their gifts, in that they caused all their first-born to pass through the fire so that I might make them desolate, in order that they might know that I am the Lord. "' 

 

“first-born to pass through the fire” - child sacrifice to the Ammonite god Molech.

 

This occurred in the Promised Land where they were influenced by the Ammonites.

 

I really didn’t want to believe this but the explanation is clear. They were offering their first born children through fire to the god Molech. We know that this was a danger to them because God commanded them not to in the Law.

 

LEV 18:21

'Neither shall you give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.

 

DEU 18:10-11

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.

 

In fact this was directly in the face of God’s command to dedicate the first born son unto Him and yet, they desired to sacrifice the son to a false god.

 

EXO 13:11-12

"Now it shall come about when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite, as He swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, that you shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast that you own; the males belong to the Lord.

 

Don't sacrifice to the world's idols the world the things that God has given you, which when you think about it, is everything. Everything belongs to Him. These practices are not as clear and obvious as they were back then because we are in an age of maximum deception.

 

In the sense of hardening of the heart, whereby whoever will not renounce idolatry is so given up to its power, we see that it draws him deeper and deeper in and even to the point of child sacrifice.

 

2TH 2:11 And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false,

 

2TH 2:12 in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

 

ACT 7:41 "And at that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.

 

ACT 7:42 "But God turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, 'It was not to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?

 

ACT 7:43 'You also took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship them. I also will remove you beyond Babylon.'

 

Molech [Moloch] was a main deity of the Ammonites. Rompha seems to be a stellar god of the Egyptians.

 

Examples of child sacrifice by kings Ahaz and Manasseh, 2CH 28:1-4; 2KI 21:1-9.

 

2CH 28:1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and he did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done.

 

2CH 28:2 But he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel; he also made molten images for the Baals.

 

2CH 28:3 Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and burned his sons in fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel.

 

2CH 28:4 And he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

 

2KI 21:1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hephzibah.

 

2KI 21:2 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord dispossessed before the sons of Israel.

 

2KI 21:3 For he rebuilt the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah [carved pole placed at the altar of Baal], as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.

 

2KI 21:4 And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, "In Jerusalem I will put My name."

 

2KI 21:5 For he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

 

2KI 21:6 And he made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft and used divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord provoking Him to anger.

 

2KI 21:7 Then he set the carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord said to David and to his son Solomon, "In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever.

 

2KI 21:8 And I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them."

 

2KI 21:9 But they did not listen, and Manasseh seduced them to do evil more than the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the sons of Israel.

 

The rabbinic writers described a bronze statue, human in form but with an ox's head, hollow within and heated from below. Children were placed inside this structure and sacrificed while drums drowned out their cries.

 

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EZE 20:26 and I pronounced them unclean because of their gifts, in that they caused all their first-born to pass through the fire so that I might make them desolate [I will ravage them], in order that they might know that I am the Lord. "'

 

This is in perfect keeping with the statement in v. 26 as the design of God in doing this: "that I might fill them with horror;" i.e., might excite such horror and amazement in their minds, that if possible they might be brought to reflect and to return to Jehovah their God.

 

Even after committing child sacrifice to a false god, God brought discipline among them so that they would return to Him.

 

EZE 20:27 "Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel, and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God," Yet in this your fathers have blasphemed Me by acting treacherously against Me.

 

EZE 20:28 "When I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill and every leafy tree, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering. There also they made their soothing aroma, and there they poured out their libations.

 

Verse 28 is the indictment to the generation that did enter the Promised Land. They continued to worship idols and acted treacherously towards the Lord.

 

EZE 16:15 "But you trusted in your beauty and played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing.

 

EZE 16:16 "And you took some of your clothes, made for yourself high places of various colors, and played the harlot on them, which should never come about nor happen.

 

EZE 16:17 "You also took your beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images that you might play the harlot with them.

 

It is insanity to take an object that God has made and worship it as God in the place of Him.